Coolink ChipChilla Chipset Cooler Review

When it comes to cooling computers most people understand the need for CPU and graphics coolers but overlook the lowly motherboard chipset. The importance of the Northbridge and Southbridge chipsets is seemingly underestimated by most consumers and this carries over onto how most manufacturers cool them (i.e. as cheaply as possible). On most entry, mid and even some high-end boards, people think that it is more than acceptable to have a small chunk of aluminum as a Northbridge cooling solution. Heck, most donít even have fans as the old style fans that used to adorn them were too loud and while people will happily put up with e-z bake oven temperatures from their chipsets they will not permit NOISE.

For the majority of people who hardly ever max out their shiny new computers, passive cooling is usually good enough; and when coupled with very good air flow it can be tolerable. However, for those one percentíers who DO max out their system and even {gasp} overclock their system, they quickly realize that the "FSB wall" has a lot to do with how hot their chipsets get. Some of the very high end boards use huge hunks of copper and heatpipes to capture the air from the CPU cooler, thus helping to alleviate this problem. While this is all well and good, not everyone has $200-$300 to splurge on a motherboard with tons of copper. For everyone else there are mods we can do to reduce these hot running chipset temperatures. These mods run the gamut from zip tying a small fan to the aluminum heatsink, replacing the factory TIM with good TIM, to even using huge spot fans to help cool them down. These tricks do work to a certain extent but it does leave a lot to be desired in the aesthetics department.

This is where aftermarket manufacturers come to the rescue with improved chipset cooling solutions. Today we will be looking at one such solution from the relatively unknown manufacturer named Coolink (for anyone who doesn't know who they are I recommend you check out my review on their very good Silentator found here: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...er-review.html). Their ChipChilla is a northbridge active cooling solution that is available at many online e-tailers at a very reasonable price. So what does $23 get you theses days? Letís find out!